Coronavirus Tests India’s Tenacity

We are in the midst of watching history as never before. We never
had so many question marks dancing in our head. We never felt so helpless. We
never dreamt our lives would change so dramatically. We never had so many
fears. Our perception of life has changed.

COVID-19 has upturned our world. Forever.

We helplessly wring our hands as we see economies collapse. As the
rich and famous die. As doctors and health workers die as they tend the sick.
We are seeing hotels and churches turn into hospitals. Some are turned away as
there is no space for treatment or shelter. Basic essentials for living vanish
from the stores. The richest nations in the world grapple with a crisis it
struggles to understand.

It is not just our lives that are changing in the last few
weeks. The politics of the world will change. So will international
relations. Geopolitical changes are imminent. Powerful rich countries will try
and dominate in desperation to survive and stay relevant. Developing countries
like India will see the logic of how important it is to stand on its feet and
not depend on others.

Already, companies in Italy and Spain on the brink of collapse are
getting offers to opt for selling it away at low prices to Chinese companies.
Partaking in these attempts at designing distress sales are state-run companies
from China. Both Italy and Spain who are grappling with managing the
crisis caused by the virus has hurriedly enacted laws to prevent distress
sales. The new laws specify that if any foreign investment which was more than
10 per cent came in, it would have to be first cleared by the government.

In all likelihood after the pandemic dies down, India will try and
once again focus on its manufacturing capacities that in the last few decades
were on a decline as cheaper goods from China had flooded the market making it
impossible for Indian made goods to survive. We will soon be hearing cries for
economic protectionism of Indian goods.

As China bounces back quickly buying companies in economies that
are collapsing, there is a great lesson to learn. India needs to stand on its
own feet if it ever wants to continue chasing a dream of being one of the major
economies of the world. When liberalisation happened, we thought we
would be a major contender by 2020. But, today, we are nowhere close. COVID-19
will put India back by a few years.

India will also have to reprioritise many policies. One of them is
investing heavily in healthcare. In the last budget, only one per cent of the
GDP was allocated to healthcare! Investments in health will
now become imperative. It has to become a governance priority. Today, the stark
reality of having underfunded healthcare is staring at us in the face.

India will have to boost medical education, improve its hospitals,
ramp up dominance in healthcare from the private sector and ensure that
governments are evaluated on the basis of the healthcare it
provides. The centre has the Delhi government and the Kerala
government as examples that can be replicated.

Kerala stood out for the way it handled the pandemic despite
having such a large number of cases. It strictly implemented the lockdown,
innovatively spread awareness, and saved numerous lives as it was aided by
a robust health system. The death rate in Kerala was minimal. Even 80 year-olds
have been cured and sent home.

Kerala’s Finance Minister Thomas Issac who is a respected
economist has raised concerns about how the central government was holding
back funds during this crucial time and not even paying up what it is supposed
to like the Goods and Services Tax compensation cess. This was to make
up for any loss of revenue due to GST that was enacted three years ago.
The only way out, Issac said, is to approach the Supreme Court to get the
centre to pay what is due to the state as per law.

To fight the virus, the centre has granted Kerala Rs. 1,276 crore
but it is not even a fraction of what the state has set aside to deal with the
crisis: Over 20,000 crore. It is more than any other state has
allocated. Kerala has ordered equipment worth Rs. 600 crore to meet the
challenge. Treatment for COVID-19 patients is free even if they are provided
with ventilators.

One major challenge will be joblessness. The International Labour
Organisation has estimated that only 22 per cent in India are into salaried
jobs while the remaining 78 per cent would struggle will any kind of money
coming in during this health emergency. India’s workforce mainly comprises
daily wagers and those in the unorganised sector.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy in a survey last month
shows that urban joblessness is at 31 per cent and rural is at 20
per cent. Almost all the states have an unemployment rate of over 10
per cent. Even after the COVID-19 nightmare is over, this is going to be a
major problem.

The ILO says that 400 million Indians run the risk of being pushed
into poverty because of the epidemic. Obviously, there is going to be serious
economic damage that will have long-reaching consequences. India will have
to think of social security now like all developed economies. The poor have to
be insured against such calamities and it is only a social capital that can
ensure that and also lessen the pain.

However, no state government is in a position today to worry about
the future as the present is so challenging. Cases and deaths of patients rise
every day. Given India’s dense population, it is not going to be easy to
contain it.

Social distancing is the only way. But as we have seen in the last
few weeks, it is being violated every day even by the most educated. One can
understand the panic with which thousands of migrants moved out after the
lockdown walking to their homes hundreds of kilometres away. They had no choice
as there was no money to continue paying rent or buying food. Everything came
to a standstill and there was no way to earn a daily wage that keeps them
going. They did not fear COID-19. They feared they would die of hunger.

All over the world social distancing was being practiced to avoid
falling prey to the virus transmitted through droplets when an affected person
coughs. How then can one explain the incongruity of a religious congregation at
Delhi where the Tablighi Jamaat where over 3,400 preachers had gathered when
there was worldwide panic of the virus spreading. This was between March 10 and
13 when India too was threatened. It was a criminal act, to say the least. The
attendees then dispersed to various states in India spreading the virus. The
administrative machinery in the country got busy tracing each one of them and
also tracing all those they came into contact. Suddenly, there was a
spiral of cases all over India due to the Tablighi Jamaat followers.

Apart from these, there were other meetings and gatherings which
included political meets and celebrations. One was the birthday of a ruling
party member. There were
gau-mutra parties where it was
propagated that the consumption of cow urine would ensure that the virus would
not affect them. All this goes to show how little we care about
science. Hopefully, science may get a new respectability after the
virus disappears as we would gear up to avoid such eventualities in the
future.

There have been numerous instances all over India of how people
were willingly violating the lockdown and not respecting rules and regulations.
Unless there is strict implementation, lockdowns are pointless. Just one case
is enough to spread it to hundreds in a matter of days. We have seen numerous
instances of how the infection has galloped with one infected person moving
around.

More shocking is to see how doctors, nurses and health workers
have had to battle hostility from those who are not even sick. Shows us what
all wars we have to fight apart from the epidemic. There has been attacks of a
communal nature too and it has been so widespread that even the secular
liberals have been affected. While we have seen some of the best examples of
human nature erupt in this crisis, we have also seen the worst.

Media houses and journalists have been under pressure if they
report inconvenient facts. Whistleblowers who have exposed the fact that
doctors and others dealing with patients do not have basic safety equipment
have been pulled up. The government approached the Supreme Court pleading that
curbs be placed on the media as they argued that fake news and social media
posts were creating panic. Fortunately, the apex court did not comply.

Unless the media has the freedom to analyse the deficiencies of
the system, how will policymakers and the public know? It will make
the public less safe if they are not informed properly and will make the wrong
choices.

It is not a healthy sign if the government expects journalists to
become cheerleaders of whatever it does or says. Especially, in a pandemic
where everyone is at risk. Trusted facts can beat any rumour.

Sadanand Dhume, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington says that when you silence the media, you silence the
noise that leads to problems getting fixed.

We need to seize the opportunity to fix larger problems using the
pandemic as an opportunity that has woken us up. We must use this opportunity
to strengthen the economy, build its health care infrastructure and build an
ecosystem that takes care of the vulnerable. This will need a new political
culture both at the centre and the states.